Page 9 of The Banning of Bath Bombs
A truly attractive man stood in his bathtub. He wore red checkered pajama pants rolled up to his knees, held a generously thick book in one hand, and wore the most befuddled expression. He blinked at Ivan.
Ivan blinked back.
“Ivan?Ivan, you’re killing me. I can’t take the suspense. What’s happening?”
“I have strange man standing in my bathtub. He’s not armed,” Ivan relayed quickly, still studying the man and wondering how he had managed to get past Ivan’s veryexpensive alarm system. “You. Who are you and how did you get in?”
“I’m Declan,” he answered, frowning at Ivan. “I, uh, was trying to figure out how the portal magic worked? I thought I could reverse engineer it? Who are you?”
“Portal magic?” Ivan cocked his head and looked the man over once more. “Ah, you are of the Others. This makes more sense now.”
Kyou could clearly hear everything as he was making strangled noises. “DECLAN IS THERE?!”
“You know who this is?”
“Long story very short, he accidentally portaled himself into Ross’s bathtub about four hours ago. Ross called me to help contact Declan’s family and get him home. He doesn’t remember anyone’s social media or phone numbers. I’ve been working on contacting someone to fetch him. Why the hell is he in your house?!”
“Do not ask me such question. You know I don’t know.” Ivan was starting to enjoy this role reversal. He’d always been the one to break into other people’s homes. Having someone break in was a novel experience. Aiden would surely have a different opinion, but it was fine. He’d see the humor in it later. “This problem cannot be solved by violence, so it’s outside of my wheelhouse.”
Kyou groaned, and from the sound of it, he was ready to binge three Monster drinks. “Well, he’s harmless, so you have that going for you. Can you bring him to me?”
The offer surprised him. “Eh, really?”
“It’s fine. I need him here to get him home again. In fact, you come help me with this.”
“If you insist.” Ivan had nothing else to do, and he was now invested.
He fetched a towel for his guest and offered it to him. “Dry off? Then I take you to my friend, da? He’s close to reaching your family.”
“Oh, splendid.” Declan took the towel, set his book down carefully on the closed toilet lid, used the towel, then paused and looked thoughtfully at the water while picking up his book again. “Say, was this tub full?”
“Njet.”
“Oh. Oh dear. So the portal magic isn’t reliant upon an already full tub? I did not factor in that possibility.” Declan frowned at the bathtub as if it had personally insulted his intelligence. “I’d best find a way to experiment with this when we can control the conditions.”
“Probably for the best, da. Borrow some slippers from me so we can leave.”
Declan asked no questions, just clutched his book to his chest as they found house slippers for him. It was fortunately a short trip to Kyou’s, as Ivan didn’t live far away.
Ever since Kyou had married Brannigan, he had, of course, moved into the man’s house, but he’d kept his apartment as a lair of sorts. He liked to work from there, and it was a secure location, so Ivan knew where to go without asking. If Kyou wasn’t there, he would have specified.
The entire drive, the strange man flipped through the grimoire and muttered to himself, clearly trying to work out where everything had gone wrong. Ivan couldn’t help him with that. He couldn’t explain how any of this worked, but he was intent on enjoying the show. How many could claim a man had used their bathtub for a magical portal? Made for an excellent story.
One that no one would ever believe.
They arrived without fanfare, and Ivan took him straight up. Since Kyou was expecting them, he didn’t knock, just opened thedoor and ushered Declan inside. He could hear Kyou talking as he came in.
“—yeah, he just walked in.” Kyou tilted his head sideways to see behind his chair. His blue-black hair was tousled around his head, dark brown eyes half obscured behind yellow-tinted glasses. “Seems fine? Declan, you okay?”
“I do apologize for the trouble,” Declan said with a world-weary sigh. “I tried to reverse engineer what happened. I did not expect to be portaled to yet another random location. I am, well, quite embarrassed.”
“No more attempts, okay? Portal magic is clearly not your friend.”
“Indeed, that does seem to be the case.”
Kyou focused on the phone in his hand. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll keep you updated. I think we can get some kind of action plan in the next hour, if one of the two chuckleheads will actually check their damn messages. Neither’s picking up the phone right now, which is equally frustrating. Sure. See you, Ross.”
Ah, of course, Ross would be alarmed when his guest suddenly disappeared. A responsible man indeed.
